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barack obama
The real victims are Pakistanis
By Will last year, at the start of March, 5 Comments »
I don’t have much to add to today’s news which wouldn’t feel or sound contrite. The sense of inevitability was gut-wrenchingly strong that cricketers would be used as pawns in terrorists’ games of attention-seeking. It was going to happen at some point: a high-profile event, part of daily life for peaceful Pakistanis, now disrupted to the point of ruin.
In fuelling their own flawed agenda, they’ve not only ensured international cricket won’t be played in Pakistan for a significant amount of time, but they’ve brought the country closer and closer to being a failed state. Not a bad morning’s work, really.
But the real victims are Pakistanis themselves. If the last few years have been rocky, the next decade looks every bit as unsettled.
One final question: how long before Barack Obama wades in?
5 Comments »Obama and cricket
By Will 2 years ago, mid-December, 3 Comments »
The outgoing president George W Bush once said: “This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.” He also uttered “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”, but that’s for another time. Our George wasn’t too clued up on life outside America, or even particularly knowledgeable about life beyond Texas or Washington. But there’s hope his replacement, Barack Obama, might show greater willing to embrace the wider world.
Michael Fullilove argues that Obama can learn all the foreign policies he needs from cricket, not baseball, in an enjoyable opinion piece at the Financial Times.
Second, as Americans often complain, cricket is a long game. A Test match often takes five days – and ends in a draw. Things are opaque in cricket, as in life: sometimes a draw can be a win. Cricket requires patience and discipline, which are not virtues we normally associate with the US. They were, however, on display during Mr Obama’s impressive campaign and they are exactly the qualities his administration will need in order to prevail in the war in Afghanistan.
Third, in the game of cricket, the condition of the pitch is critical. The ball usually bounces before it reaches the batsman, which introduces extra unpredictability into the contest. The ball does not just swing in the air, it turns off the seam. It can come at your head, not just your chest. In foreign policy, too, the decision-making environment is fast and fluid. It is difficult to see the choices before you, let alone make the right ones.
Bush did once try to play the great game, but I doubt he has ever sat through five days of a Test match. Or, for that matter, the four-hour Twenty20. But he has given us endless amusement that someone of his deep stupidity could have become the most powerful man in the world. We owe him thanks for that.
3 Comments »Dhoni is ‘Obama in white clothes’
By Will 2 years ago, mid-November, 20 Comments »
I enjoy Peter Roebuck’s writing, but this is taking things a little far, don’t you think? Talking about MS Dhoni, he says:
He came to cricket as might a passenger at a train station, reached captaincy, runs, fame and riches not as some ruined child or as a street urchin destined to cover himself in bracelets but as a grounded and gritty young man for whom wealth was a consequence and not an aim. He wanted to rise, but on his own terms; he was not hungry enough to sell himself short. He is Obama in white clothes.
Granted, India have beaten Australia 2-0 – a superb, seismic win given Australia’s dominance for so long, though India has been an incredibly difficult place for tourists to win for yonks. And, yes, Dhoni is a seriously impressive, composed, grounded character with a Gilchristian urge to entertain. But to say he is Obama in white clothes overstates Dhoni’s influence and underplays Obama’s feat.
Discuss.
20 Comments »History beckons
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of November, 2 Comments »
(Disclaimer: yes, I know, this is a cricket blog. But I occasionally divert onto things I discover, things I’m interested in or passionate about. Cricket is but one of those things. This one is about politics. Stop reading now if that bores you).
I don’t claim to know Obama and McCain’s policies inside out. The same goes for Gordon Brown and David Cameron. But I’ve been consumed by the American election, and can’t help feeling the weight of history on the USA’s shoulders tonight.
What most interests me is not the two candidates, fascinating though it’s been to watch them tussle – more the level of passion towards them that exists in America. The determination and commitment, mostly by volunteers, to back their man to the hilt, spending hours and days and weeks performing endless leaflet drops and doing their tiny bit to aid the campaigns. It is seriously impressive.
The coverage of this drama has been quite suffocating at times by the BBC – the news reports have been almost as exhaustive as if this was a British election – but to witness how deeply Americans care about their political system is to watch democracy, however flawed that concept might be, in action. From a Briton’s perspective, it’s been fascinating. We just don’t engender that same level of support. Brown, Cameron – bah, who cares? My Dad was conservative all his life; that’ll do me then. That seems to be the peak of our interest.
I saw John Prescott’s programme on class the other night (surprisingly good), and in it, a girl said “Brown? Gordon who? Who’s he?” I know I’m threatening to devalue my currency as a young, hip and decidedly brilliant 26-year-old with this next question, but I don’t care: are there really people in this country of intelligible age who don’t know the name of our Prime Minister?
Yes, that’ll happen in America too – but will we ever have that same drive and commitment towards a politician and determination for change that the States has shown? I can’t see it. Good on you America. It might be showy, it might smack of a charade and be utterly corrupt – a media machine like no other. You may have some truly idiotic people waiting to be your vice presidents, too. But at least people are involved and interested and engaged in their futures, a notion that Britain can only dream of.
Our kids and grand-children might one day ask “Where were you when Barack Obama was voted in?” It’s an exciting day and I hope it has inspired younger people in Britain.
2 Comments »Cricket the sideshow
By Alex Try 2 years ago, at the end of October, No Comments; be the first!
The democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent millions of dollars this week in airing a half-hour campaign advert on several prime-time US television networks. An orator in the finest classical traditional, he offers a compelling vision for his country. His pitch was moving, uplifting and polished in presentation.
This coming Saturday another commercial will air: this time for the billionaire financer Sir Allen Stanford. The comparison between the two is marked. While Stanford employs a camera to trail him throughout his set-piece cricket-match, Obama highlights the lives of the ordinary Americans whose lives he hopes to change. These two words “hope” and “change” are ubiquitous throughout the speeches Obama makes. The word most often seen at Stanford’s event is Stanford itself: the Stanford Stadium, the Stanford Super Series, the Stanford Superstars. He likes alliteration as much as the sound of his own name.
And this is the crucial point. This is not about the cricketing spectacle (if it was the pitch would be better) – this is about image and ego, compared to substance and character. Stanford is now the most well-known 205th richest man in America. Nobody has heard of John Catsimatidis, the next on the list. Money is his raison d’etre, and in buying the England cricket team he has bought the biggest advert the City of London has ever seen.
Here is one final thought: before the stadium was developed, with its pristine outfield and vernacular West Indian pavilion, the site was used as an old rubbish dump. Some metaphors come just too easily.
No Comments »Bill Clinton’s speech
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of August, 3 Comments »
Say what you like about American politics, but you cannot deny the sheer entertainment value, or its ability to engage with the public. The campaign in the USA has been enthralling for all the usual reasons, and the speeches often spine-tinglingly sycophantic. But to watch Bill Clinton address the Democratic National Convention in Denver was to witness one of the modern masters of oratory. Watch the video. It’s about 25 minutes and quite brilliant in its use of rhetoric, facial expressions, and in whipping up the crowd at just the right moments.
I’ve always hated the quasi-religious feel to American politics. Watching Joe Public burst into tears at the sight of his favourite democratic candidate is distinctly un-British. Yet the interest surrounding this campaign has been astonishing, even taking into account the false sense of drama, of celebrity, noise, money and colour which often characterises politics in the States.
And yet, can you imagine David Cameron or Gordon Brown whipping the cynical British public into such a frenzy, instilling their vision into our minds? No, nor me. For once, I’m a little jealous of America. I love all the tradition of our politics (apart from the unelected Lords, who should all be put in a home), but how can Cameron and co engage with our public with the same infectious spirit of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton?
3 Comments »Barack Obama: the couscous candidate
By Will 2 years ago, mid-January, 5 Comments »
As may or may not be apparent, I’m a big fan of political satire, and indeed comedy as a whole. Most writers think they possess acerbic wit and the ability to satirise our lives and politicians, but few cut the mustard. One of the very best, in this country and most others, is Armando Iannucci who has written, produced, directed and featured in some of Britain’s best comedies in the past 20 years. Anything he writes is must-read, and here is his take on Barack Obama:
But, rhythmically, it’s quite alluring. It can make anything, even, for example, a simple chair, seem magnificent. Why vote for someone who says: ‘See that chair. You can sit on it’ when you can have someone like Obama say: ‘This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl’s behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America’s huddled arse.’
Superb. Read it here.
5 Comments »